Born in poverty in Slane, County Meath, Ledwidge worked as a farm hand, copper miner and road labourer. In his twenties he would become a rising star in the Irish literary scene, although he lived only to see one collection of his verse in print, receiving his author's copy while freezing and on starvation rations in Serbia. Although a staunch Irish Nationalist, he chose to fight in the First Worl...